Briar Patch Books

Month: October 2010

  • Take a look — Margaret Maron review

     By Linda Brinson In my debut book review for the Greensboro News & Record today, I look at Margaret Maron’s latest Deborah Knott mystery, Christmas Mourning.  Maron’s series, as her many fans know, is a lot of fun. Her main character, Deborah Knott, is a district court judge in a county near Raleigh, N.C. She has 11…

  • Anno Dracula

    Just in time for Halloween, Steve Wishnevsky offers a review of a spooky classic. By Steve Wishnevsky ANNO DRACULA. By Kim Newman. Simon and Shuster. 1992. There is a minor branch of Fantasy known as the Pastiche, where the author will jam together fictional and historical characters in a familiar setting, usually for the purposes…

  • A Nose for Justice

    I count Rita Mae Brown as a Southern author because she lives in the Virginia hill country, and many of her books are set there. In the book I review here, however, Brown has gone to a very different part of the country for the setting of a new series. It’s the Nevada desert, where…

  • White Night

    Our latest book review is not of a newly published book, but rather of one representative book in a series that our reviewer considers worthy of discussion. The book can be found in hardback and paper editions. The reviewer is Steve Wishnevsky of Winston-Salem, an accomplished writer who also has many other creative talents. Here’s…

  • Private Life

    Our latest review is by that gentleman and scholar, Robert Moyer of Winston-Salem. Here’s how Bob describes himself (I think it’s mostly true): Bob Moyer is a member of the National Book Critics’ Circle.  His haiku poetry has been published extensively, and may be seen frequently at Haiku News (wayfarergallery.net). He is a member of…

  • Little Boy Blues — Check it out

    Question for the day: If your friends publish their memoirs, does that mean you’re getting old?             I don’t know the answer to that. But if you haven’t seen the October issue of Our State magazine already, be sure to check out my review of Little Boy Blues: A Memoir, by my old (but not…

  • Painted Ladies

    Here is Briar Patch Book’s second review. Mick Scott is an editor and connoisseur of good literature who lives in Winston-Salem, N.C. By Mick Scott PAINTED LADIES. By Robert B. Parker. Putnam. 304 pages. $26.95. Spenser is observing the day outside his office window when someone with unusual characteristics walks in to hire him. That’s…

  • Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

    By Linda Brinson Here’s my first review for Briar Patch Books. It’s a fitting topic for the debut post. While my fellow reviewers and I will tackle a variety of books, I have a special interest in Southern fiction. Tom Franklin’s book is one of the best new Southern novels I’ve read in a long…

  • Hello from Linda

    Hi, this will soon be my book blog.  I was the book-review editor of the Winston-Salem Journal for 25 years.  Since August, that book-review page is history, and so is my editorship. However, I’ve still been reading. And publishers have kindly been sending me review copies. So, as soon as I figure out what I’m…